Lost In Your Footsteps

Dirty

~Keaton~

"I was a sex slave. Literally not figuratively."

My brain couldn't even comprehend what he said to me but my eyes snapped from the floor to his brown eyes. I couldn't breathe and saw nothing in his gaze. He almost seemed... Dead. His eyes held no life or glimmer of hope. No fear or anxiety at his deadpanned confession which renders me useless. I blinked once. Then again.

"I-" I wanted to say something. I need to say something. But what? What do I say to that? 'Oh I'm sorry do you want that to stay a secret between us or-?' I'm gonna have to speak to my mom tonight. I can't tell dad because he'd just start shooting like a dumbass.

"I'm sorry if that disgusts you. I'll leave and you won't have to say anything to Mrs.Jones or your dad I promise." His eyes left mine and he looked down into his lap. I followed his gaze to see him twiddling his fingers. I noticed he does that when he's scared, nervous, or just overthinking something trivial.

"You are not leaving this house till we figure something out." I firmly set down how I felt about the situation without letting him know just how scared I really was. I took a deep breath in and out, closing my eyes to clear my head. There's a runaway sex slave in my home. Andrew is definitely a minor and sex work is already a tricky field as far as I know. I opened my eyes to see him watching me through his long lashes, tears waiting to fall.

Fuck. I had an idea that he might have experienced some type of abuse just watching the way he moved around everyone in the house but the words 'sex slave' were the last ones I expected out of him. I stood up to completely shut the bedroom door, leaving only us in the room to hopefully make Andrew feel secure enough to tell me more and confide in me to keep him safe.

"How long have you been- a um-" I didn't want to make it seem like it was disgusting or anything but I am still trying to wrap my head around this shit. I slowly walked back to Andrew, instead of squatting back down on the floor, I hopped into the bed and crawled behind Andrew's body to lay close to the wall. This way I could keep him close without looking like I wanted to rip the answers to my questions out of him. It's only been a week and a half since he's left whatever situation he was in and I don't want to force anything from him. I want him to be comfortable in my presence.

I folded my arms behind my head and closed my eyes. Taking deep soothing breaths to show Andrew there's nothing to be scared of. I felt the sheets shift next to me and Andrew grunted from probably readjusting his body to face mine. After a silent moment and a little bit of tense hesitation from him, he took a deep breath.

"Since as long as I can remember." He whispered through his teeth and if I had been any farther away I wouldn't have heard it but I did. Loud and clear. My body went rigid and my heart clenched. I cracked open my eye to see him. His brown hair hung in his eyes and his bottom lip seemed to wobble. I took a deep breath, releasing one of my arms from behind my head and slowly setting it in his lap, his legs crossed beneath him.

His body jerked for a split second before taking my hand in his smaller one. His fingers shook, I gripped his hand a little tighter and traced my thumb in circles on the back of it. His breaths started to sound forced like he was trying to get control over himself and calm down. Probably talking himself out of another panic attack.

"Where are your parents?" I asked him quietly, his fingers shaking again in my hand. I opened my eyes to see him shaking his head. He doesn't know. He has no fucking clue. If he's been doing this since he can remember, that means a long fucking time because I can remember back to when I was like 5 or 6. That's, not even sex work, that's rape. He was raped from a young age, robbed of his childhood, and thrown into adulthood with the wolves being expected to come out alive for the next hunt of whoever wanted to use his body.